13.3% X 2

casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.   1 Pet 5:7  NASB (1995)

Anxiety – Occasionally I write something that is so essential to my own well-being that I think someone else must have been the author.  This edition of Today’s Word first appeared on 11 March of this year, but now that I’m reading it again, I know it needs to be repeated.  So, here it is once more.

“Anxiety disorders are present in up to 13.3% of individuals in the U.S. and constitute the most prevalent subgroup of mental disorders.”[1]  A startling statement, don’t you think?  43 million people in the USA alone.  Upon reflection, we might recognize just how many of us are subject to these disturbing projections of the future.  You see, anxiety is not like fear.  Fear is about past or present threats.  Anxiety is about projected potential threats.  Fear can produce the traumas that set the stage for our present worldview.  Anxiety is anticipated harm and dreaded powerlessness.  When the Bible tells us not to fear, it’s not talking about what might happen.  It’s talking about what has happened.  So, the 365 declarations about not being afraid might not help one bit with anxiety even if they help us deal with past and present trauma.  If we’re going to live harmonious lives, we will also need to deal with our projections.  For that reason, we need to pay close attention to the word group that contains the Greek mérimnan.

“merimnán is self-concern relative to the future. The questions show that worry is what is meant. It is this that makes a proper concern foolish by fostering the illusion that concern for the means of life can grant security to life itself. The future is not in our hands.”^[2]

Compare Matthew 6:25: “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?”  Here Yeshua (in translation) uses the same Greek word.  We are told (commanded?) not to be anxious.  But how?  How is that possible when the future is ominous, unpredictable, threatening?  How can we simply set aside any concern about what will happen to us when the world is spiraling out of control, when evil exerts more and more claim over the lives of men, when we can no longer trust the systems of our civilization?

Perhaps we need to start with a clear idea of this Greek term.  Bultmann offers the following:

merimnáō, promerimnáō, mérimna.

Greek Usage. This group covers much the same range of meaning as the English “care”: a. “to care for someone or something,” b. “to be concerned or anxious,” c. “to be intent on or strive after,” d. “to be anxiously expectant,” e. “to be solicitous,” and f. “to brood, speculate, or inquire.” The plural mérimnai is often used for the cares of life which disturb sleep, from which refuge is sought in love or drink, and which only death can end.^[3]

The NT realizes that life is swayed by care. Concern is unavoidable but it is given a new orientation. Liberation from it comes as one casts it upon God, not because God grants every wish, but because prayer grants freedom from care. To be anxious about food or clothing is opposed to concern for the kingdom of God (Mt. 6:26ff.). Naturally we have to work (1 Th. 2:9 etc.), but we cannot secure life by care; our concern must be for the kingdom. To care for the world is to fall victim to it.^[4]

Did you notice the comment, “The plural mérimnai is often used for the cares of life which disturb sleep, from which refuge is sought in love or drink, and which only death can end”?  Let’s update this a bit.  Anxiety is a state of mind that disturbs necessary refreshing rest, and attempts to escape from this often appear as symptoms like sex addiction or alcoholism.  I once wrote that addiction is repressed anger.  Now I can add that addiction is also disguised anxiety.  That helps me realize that anxiety’s true character is powerlessness.  It’s the feeling that my life is spinning out of control and that I am unable to do anything about it.  It’s psychological impotence.

And that’s why “do not fear” can’t help.

You see, anxiety isn’t about being afraid.  It’s about being helpless.  That means the cure for anxiety can’t be found in God’s psychological protection because there isn’t any real enemy.  What’s missing is confidence about the future.

Psalm 55:22 connects mérimnai to the Hebrew word yĕhāb.  The verse is: “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.”  But something quite unusual happens when the Hebrew is translated into Greek in the LXX.  Notice the comment about the verbal root:

yāhab is used some thirty-three times, only in the Qal imperative. The Aramaic is used twenty-eight times in different tenses. The more common synonym is nātan rendered by didōmi “give,” in LXX. Yet didōmi is also used, almost exclusively, for the Aramaic yĕhab. Our word emphasizes the notion of presenting or setting an object or person somewhere. The LXX renders the noun yĕhāb with merimna (Ps 55:22 [H 23]) “what has been given you” (KJV “burden”).^[5]

Specifically:

yĕhāb in Ps 55:22 [H 23]) is translated “burden” (KJV, ASV, RSV) with the additional marginal note “what he has given you” (RSV taking the word as a perfect of the verb). Instructive is the LXX merimna “care, anxiety, burden” in this passage, used four times for dĕʾāgâ “anxious care.” In Sir 34:1 and 42:9 it is linked with sleeplessness. The thought then would be God’s providence, whether it forbodes evil or good, should not induce fear or brooding anxiety, but contrariwise should cause one to turn in quiet confidence to the Lord who gives a new perspective on life. God then does not guarantee our desire, but rather he is the one who knows our needs better than we ourselves.^[6]

Let’s decipher this.  When we translate the thought into Greek, merimna implies a state of mind, a sense of foreboding helplessness.  This is what we expect from a Greek worldview where internal consciousness takes precedence.  In the Greek world, reality is in the mind.  But Hebrew has a different perspective.  The Hebrew yĕhāb is about God’s providence in engineering the experiences of our lives.  While Greek pushes us in the direction of internal anxious concern, Hebrew encourages us to accept what God engineers with a sense of confidence in the external divine plan.  It is not focused on our internal consciousness but rather on the external operations of the sovereign God.  Thus, the rabbis pray, “Lord, make my heart malleable so that I may accept whatever You wish for me.”  Anxiety is a lack of confidence in God’s sovereignty.  It is, therefore, a step in the direction of idolatry.  And it’s an endorsement of the Greek worldview.

The Bible doesn’t provide a psychological cure for anxiety.  It provides an historical active resolution.  God is in control.  He engineers our lives.  We rest in His decisions.  We count on Him.  His promises are true.

And anxiety evaporates.

Topical Index: yĕhāb, merimna, anxiety, Psalm 55:22, Matthew 6:25, 1 Peter 5:7

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3628173/

^[2] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 584). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Gilchrist, P. R. (1999). 849 יָהַב. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 368). Chicago: Moody Press.

^[6] Ibid.